Nonresistance in the Old Testament — Stephen Russell — Ep. 053

Well, hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Stephen Russell, and you do a lot of teaching here at Faith Builders up here in Guys Mills, Pennsylvania. And particularly interesting to me for this episode is you wrote a book on non-resistance called "Overcoming Evil: God's Way."

And so I have some friends that aren't Anabaptists, would not believe in non-resistance. And whenever I mention, "We should do the way of peace, we should love our enemies," they always say, "Well, what about the Old Testament?" So yeah, this is kind of a big topic, but I'm curious. The teachings of loving your enemies, that's more, that's all New Testament. That Jesus kind of, that was a brand new concept Jesus had. Is that actually the case?

There are hints and clues of this teaching in the Old Testament. So for instance, the Jews were to love their neighbor, their brother, but they're not told specifically to love those others around them. But there are a lot of things that are in the Old Testament that point in the right direction, in this direction of non-resistance. My key point would be that God is working with people who have fallen very far from where they started, and He's working with them where they're at to get them to the place where the Messiah can come. The Old Testament is a huge struggle with God convincing His people that there is but one God and that they need to live a certain way for their own good.

In Deuteronomy, it says, "These laws are for your good." It's not God pounding them, "Obey these laws." It's, "I give this to you for your own good." But they have to, there's a path they have to, it's like going up a hill. They've got to get to a certain place, a level where the Messiah can finally come. Once the Messiah comes, He preaches the Sermon on the Mount, and He says, "In the Old Testament you heard this, and it was necessary, it was useful, it was God working with His people to bring them to a certain place. But now you're here, I'm here, the Messiah is here, and this is what you are called to do."

And if you don't think that these people had really plunged to very low places, just read the first couple of chapters of Genesis. Without the direction of God's law and God's prophets, they got so bad that God sent the flood to purify the earth, and they started on the same path again, and God confused their languages. So then finally He picks a man and starts a family from Abraham, and with that family He teaches them how to live well. But it's a progressive thing.

And so in the Old Testament they learn things like, "Love your fellow Jews." But they also learn things like, "Don't, if you do go to fight," and this is in Deuteronomy 20, I believe, "If you do have to go fight, don't be overly violent, don't destroy where not necessary, offer the city the chance to surrender." So they already had clues that you weren't to just go and kill anybody you could. And even in the conquest of Canaan, it says that God brought them there, the Jewish people, when the sins of the Canaanites were finally at their full, and they needed to be punished. But notice that the Gibeonites hear what's happening, and they repent.

God didn't want to kill everyone just because they had been sinners. There's one case where they don't resist, where they fool the Israelites, and God doesn't say, "Kill them anyway." There are just a lot of clues like that. This is God bringing His people to a place where they can finally accept, "We are supposed to lay our own lives down rather than kill others."

Also, as you read carefully the Old Testament, when the Jewish people were closest to God, He usually caused their enemies to fall on each other rather than the Jews have to go and kill. There's no question, even in the Old Testament, that killing badly affects the person who does it. Yeah, it's pretty obvious. And we just know that too from modern studies, etc. So God in the Old Testament was at work bringing people from a state that was very sinful to a place where they were much more like He wanted them to be and finally could send the Messiah so that the Messiah could save us and then call us to live according to God's heart.

It's all building up to that capstone of Jesus. It's all building up to that. And so we have to look at it that way. The early Anabaptists looked at it that way, and they said, "We do not want to read the Bible as a flat book," in other words, the Old Testament equal to the New. They said, "The Old Testament is God's work with His people, but now we see in the New Testament the way He really wanted to work with us." And so you read the Old Testament through the New. And what that meant was, in the Old Testament, the Jewish people fought and they took part in government. You don't see that in the New Testament.

And so what they did was they took Jesus' approach in the Sermon on the Mount, "You've heard it said, but I say unto you." So they heard the New Testament saying, "This is the way that people can live now that Jesus has come and given us new life." It wasn't that way in the Old Testament. And so it's a different life, moving in the right direction, but it's not a life that has the Spirit like we do.

So would you say then that the doctrine of non-resistance is in the Old Testament? And if so, how is it present? It isn't just those clues that I was talking about. Especially in Isaiah, Micah does it too. Isaiah is looking forward and saying, "There's this day that's going to come when," and he uses the imagery of animals living peacefully with each other, and the child can put his hand on the adder's nest and things like that. And so there's this picture of the ultimate goal for God's people. He also says that we're going to, both in Micah and Isaiah, that we're going to hammer our swords and our spears into plows and pruning hooks.

So it actually is there already, but it also says this is going to come in the future. And it's looking to what happens when you actually become a Christian and you start to lay down your weapons and you try to bring peace.

That makes good sense. And there are different hints throughout Scripture, even parts of Proverbs. You have a random verse that talks about different things about peace or treating your enemies well. It's there. It's kind of scattered throughout, but it's there. Yeah. You know, Paul quotes from Proverbs about heaping coals of fire on your enemy's head. And it sounds like the way Paul uses it, and I think maybe too in Proverbs, you're doing to embarrass him. I mean, it could sound violent, but actually I think it's about, okay, embarrass him by treating him the right way. Yeah, yeah. And that's actually an Old Testament passage, which is very interesting. Yeah. I think there's even a few verses in Lamentations, I believe, where it talks about this.

We might have to look that up, but there's different scatterings throughout. That's interesting. As Christians, our lifestyles are supposed to be an extension of our view of God. And how does all this work out if we're going to say we're non-violent, but then we see God very clearly commanding the conquest of Canaan and different other conflicts in history? How does that work with our view of God? Well, I don't know how well I thought about this. I thought a little bit about this.

First of all, I would not say we are non-violent. I would say that we're non-resistant. See, non-violent people can resist, and when you resist somebody else, you're going to cause friction, and there can still be fighting. The non-resistant person says, "I'm willing to lay my life down."

Okay. So I would actually not use that word. But I also think that when we talk about God and say He's obviously a violent God, I think this is a mistake, a category mistake. God has made us. He's made everything. He owns us. We belong to Him. And He can take care of us or use us as He will. And I think it is legitimate for Him to say, "This people has sinned so much that I'm going to let another people conquer them and judge them that way." I don't think that we can call that action, that allowance by God, violence. Violence is when I violate another person, somebody that I don't have the rights over you that God has over everyone.

So if I abuse you, that's violence. Now, I don't know if probably somebody's going to really object to this, but so I, first of all, object to saying that when God does say, "This group of people must conquer this group," that this is violence because if He judges a people, He can do away with them.

It's not a violence because He's not violating them. They belong to Him. But you don't belong to me, and if I start beating you up, then I'm violating you. So that's how I see this. I think we actually use some words incorrectly in relation to God. So He has the right. He owns the Canaanite people. I think that He gave them opportunity to hear the truth, and they went their own way. And at a certain point, when their injustice reached its peak, He used the Jewish people to conquer them. He didn't even wipe them all out. And at least in part, that gave some of them an opportunity to turn back to God. So I think we have to recognize in the Old Testament that there are violent scenes, yes.

But I don't think that God can be accused of violating other beings like we can. So I know that won't appeal to many people, but that would be part of my understanding of what's happening in the Old Testament. God is not violating. He is not using violence.

By that, you just mean He allows the Israelites to use force to either drive out or kill. Well, that's another thing. If the Israelites had originally obeyed God, it sounds like He would have slowly driven the Canaanites out of their land with wild animals and insects and things. But they didn't. They disobeyed. And so the Israelites had a judgment against them that they had to go to war and that they had to die themselves. So it's a really complex issue of a lack of obedience on all the sides. The Canaanites going their own way. The Canaanites doing horrible things like killing their own children to try to get the gods to do what they wanted.

And then finally, the Israelites coming out of Egypt, God saving them, and they see His mighty hand, and yet they disobey. And then they suffer for that as well. If they had done what God had said, I think there would have been more conversion, less violence, less bloodshed. If they had gone in when they were told to, and God sent the wasps and the bees in front of them, I think, you know, we know that the Canaanites and the Philistines were watching this. Because when the Israelites went over the Jordan, the Philistines said, "These are those people that 40 years ago left Egypt, and now look what their God is doing." And they were scared.

They knew what had happened 40 years ago, and they're still heading our way. And so if the Israelites had been more obedient, everything would have worked out so different, I think. Yeah, I think. That makes sense. I see what you're getting at there. Yeah. I have to admit the Old Testament is difficult in places.

And that's partly because we now understand God's heart and we're able, with His Spirit, to live it, to live more what is really His heart. They weren't. Yeah. They weren't ready. They weren't able to. Yeah. That makes sense. In brief, what would you say to another Christian who might be watching this or listening to this, who hasn't yet come to the conviction of non-resistance?

Well, I would ask him or her to look at the life of the Savior carefully, see what He calls us to, notice both how he and his followers were looking for something different than what was normally expected. So the Jewish people, when Jesus seemed to be the Messiah, they were expecting him to raise an army and kick the Romans out. This is what happened. Jesus loved the Romans, in fact. And when he was judged, he told Pilot, "My kingdom is not of this world. That's why my people are not fighting." So I would call them to that, but I would also ask them to read Romans 12 and 13 very carefully and watch the pronouns.

Romans 12 is all about how we Christians should live. And that is where it calls us to, "As much as it lies within you, live at peace with all men." It's all you. You do this. Then the first seven verses of 13 are about the government, and it's all you. They. It's what they are supposed to do. They are God's ministers for wrath and to call people to live well. But then it doesn't tell us where to be that. It says, "And you Christians, honor them, obey them, pay the taxes." It's clear there are two different groups of people met. And then after verse 7 in chapter 13, it goes back to, "Oh no man, anything but love," I think is how it starts.

And so it goes back to, "You do these things." So my call would be, go to Romans, read 12 and 13 very carefully. Notice that God is calling you to lay your life down, to, "As much as lies within you, be at peace with all men." Overcome evil, not by doing something against a person, but by love. And then that little piece is about how the government is supposed to do things. And it's not us. It's them.

And we're called to such different things. We are called to woo people into the kingdom and then teach them the all things. The government is called to ask people to live as well as they can, but if they won't, it has the sword to keep people in line.

You can't do those two things. The same person can't do those two things. So I think Romans 12 and 13 are two of the key places to read. If you're a Bible-believing Christian, read those really carefully. Notice who it's directed to, so that it's first the Christian, then the state, and then the Christian again.

That makes good sense. Yeah. Wonderful. Was there anything else you would like to add? No, I don't think of anything else. Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time, and especially the amount of time you've put into writing your book. We'll make sure and put a link to that. So if people want to study it out more, they can buy a copy and really read up on this. I think this is really important for people to wrestle through these things. So yeah, thank you for helping us to make this episode. Okay. Yeah.